


say it's over [say i'm dreaming]

by monovosa



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, don't read this is if you mind spoilers for the movie thanks, lil warning for ell's baiting of carmilla, non-graphic sexy stuff too, or if you hate skipping present to past and back again eek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 22:05:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12567216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monovosa/pseuds/monovosa
Summary: laura sees carmilla climb up the bed and whisper promises that sound like threats, but she doesn’t see carmilla keep them.





	say it's over [say i'm dreaming]

**Author's Note:**

> title's a brandi carlile
> 
> this is not betaed
> 
> this is not polished in the slightest
> 
> this is not the feel-good fic you’re looking for

There is not a day that goes by that the very sight of Laura doesn’t make Carmilla’s mouth water with want, her hands itching to wrap around the strength and slight of her, to pull her impossibly close and then pull her apart.

She does that as many times as she’s able. She has Laura in every room in their flat and then again, needy and wonderful. Everything tastes different as a human, sharper and cloying across the flat of her tongue and the blunt ridges of her teeth, and Carmilla cannot help but replace one hunger with another as many times as Laura will let her. It’s only when she’s pushed away with a laugh and a “Babe, that’s _enough_ ” that she licks her lips and stretches like the cat form she sometimes misses, turned lazy by the warmth of it all.

“You’re incorrigible,” Laura whispers once she’s come down enough to press in close for a kiss. “Never knew this would be a benefit of having a regular ol’ human girlfriend, but I’ll take it.”

-

Ell had been spun sugar: delicate, a rarity, all soft colours and whimsy, melting on the tongue and leaving behind an ache for _more, more, more_ when Carmilla wasn’t nearly finished. Their first meeting had been planned, of course, by Maman; another sacrificial lamb for the pile of bodies that grew and grew. But one look at Ell in her ball gown with diamonds glittering on her sweet throat and there had been a shiver of hope deep underneath where Carmilla’s heart sat dead (or dormant, she thinks hundreds of years later, pressing her other hand to her breastbone and feeling the tremour, the weakness, the _life_ ). Carmilla hid her eyes from Maman when asked.

"It will be done," she promised, and turned away with a smile on her face, hiding a picture in the locket strung between her breasts.

-

Laura tells her she’s seeing into Carmilla’s past and Carmilla’s heart seizes in a way she’s not sure she’ll ever get used to (again), live flesh faltering and stuttering.

Laura keeps talking while Carmilla’s mind slips forward and back, first latching onto Laura’s words and then, when they prove Laura hasn’t seen much, falling to the girl Carmilla has tried to not think about for centuries.

It’s been centuries. God, it’s been _centuries_.

It’s hard to believe now that her skin warms instead of itches in the sun and she spends her days basking in the glory of mortal life. It has been centuries since Carmilla has seen Ell, since Carmilla breathed in her scent and fought with her and kissed her because she just had to, the teasing pout too much to bear. It’s hard to believe it all when Carmilla feels young again and Laura's here and everything is finally right, the youth of body and mortal mind renewed.

It’s been centuries and Carmilla remembers everything, now that she must.

Laura sees Carmilla climb up the bed, whispering promises that sound like threats, but she doesn’t see Carmilla keep them.

-

They’d first kissed under the lights in the garden during some ball or other. Maman was inside, unbeknownst to Carmilla. Time would show her displeased as ever by the effort and she’d come to arrange the demise herself, her usual trap, but she’d failed to warn Carmilla.

A story for another time.

They’d gone supposedly for air and truly to escape the men jostling for their attention. Ell was tucked into Carmilla’s side, feigning cold and pressing against colder skin. Carmilla let her.

“The stars look so romantic tonight,” Ell had whispered once the sounds of the party quieted with distance. Carmilla knew what came next, but this was different: her stomach turned once, twice, when Ell pulled them to a halt.

“Ell?”

“You’re darling,” Ell said, sounding timid for the first time. Her blood quickened its pace to her heart. “And- you’re mine.”

It was nearly a question and it was all Carmilla could do to nod and whisper _yes, yes_ before Ell kissed her.

It was so wrong- Ell was to be hers only long enough to be coaxed to pliancy- but the shadows were too lovely on Ell’s lashes, her cheekbones, the fall of her dress, and Carmilla crumbled beneath them.

-

The further they get down that long path, the more Carmilla remembers. She remembers Maman's carriage dropping her off at the front of the house that stood as a gift from the baron to his spoiled youngest daughter and the whinnies of the horses harsh against the stone façade as they awaited the next order from their master. She walks into the house amidst the echoes of ghosts and Ell’s face is there to greet her once more, this time shrouded in black and the likeness of her not quite right, the painting too flat and dark to capture the vibrancy of a girl long dead. The others scurry off and Carmilla wanders, shivering as the wind plays a trick and the still familiar words float past her ears.

_Hello, lover. Won’t you come inside?_

-

Laura keeps dreaming but doesn’t ever see the press of Carmilla’s mouth to a yet-sleeping Ell, the cool touch of lips just enough to distract from slumber. She doesn’t ever see drowsy lift of Ell’s arms to sink Carmilla down, down, down into her embrace.

But Carmilla- oh, Carmilla remembers the scratch of cotton lace against the skin of her chest and the way Ell’s eyes would flash when Carmilla came straight to bed still smelling of the parlour smoke and champagne of the evening’s entertainment, the weight of her skirts welcome until Ell lost her patience and demanded Carmilla remove them from her sight.

Laura dreams Carmilla as a predatory thing but doesn’t ever see the way Ell filled that role better than Carmilla ever could, fangs pricked into the juncture of Carmilla’s neck and those claws that tore Carmilla’s heart asunder.

-

Being back in the house is like being sucker punched in the tender part of the stomach, under the ribs and to the side where it hurts the most. Carmilla is winded, over and over, as the literal ghosts of her past parade before her in dresses and fancy she can almost remember, if she tries hard enough. It’s a sweet agony after several lifetimes of trying _not_ to try. She remembers that hearts do actually break, provided enough pressure.

She stalks the hallways, her fondest haunt, and pauses before the door ( _their_ door) to put her palm flat to the wood. She squeezes her eyes shut.

-

“Turn for me,” Ell told her once the skirts were crumpled before the fire and Carmilla shivered to do as Ell pleased. Her skin felt thin, transparent under Ell’s hungry, heavy gaze. Carmilla obeyed and Ell rewarded her with a kiss on her bare shoulder, nosed the strap of Carmilla’s underclothes to the side and then bit, just so.

“My darling,” Ell said and it sounded like an oath. “Beloved, come to bed.”

Carmilla went willingly, forgot darker promises in exchange for temporary light.

-

Something in Ell- or whatever this apparition is, borne again from the ash in Carmilla’s mind- starts to slip. Laura will find her huddled in that room after what feels like lifetimes of watching Ell rip open her own hand to lure the beast. It works, again and again, and Carmilla will barely register Laura coming for her, far gone and numb on the inside and out.

-

“Look at me,” Ell had said, standing at the very edge of her balcony, above the circle where Maman’s carriage would soon come to spirit her away. Carmilla’s heart leapt in her throat to see Ell that way, foolish and carefree and calculating, her eyes narrowed in strange pleasure while Carmilla beseeched her.

-

“Did you ever love me?” It comes out a whisper and Ell doesn’t turn, hacks at her palm and watches as Carmilla’s eyes widen in fear, as she starts screaming when her nature betrays her and the woman she loves accuses her of the exact thing she’s done.

Carmilla swallows, asks again, watches as the memory judders to a stop and Ell glances over her shoulder.

“No.”

“You’re lying.” Again, louder. The memory starts to fray further. “You’re _lying_.”

“You murdered me. You left me to die.” Ell’s scream is different now, cracked at the edges as this place struggles to pull her back to the script. Her dress bleeds black at the corners, her torn hand reaching for Carmilla even as she curses her. “I would’ve gone with you and you _murdered me_.”

“I know, I know,” Carmilla sobs, and reaches back.

-

“Come down- Ell, _don’t_ ,” and there’s a smile on Carmilla’s face despite it all.

“No, never,” Ell promises. Sometimes, she lands in Carmilla’s arms. Sometimes, she doesn’t.

-

“Do you dream of her anymore?” Carmilla asks just once, hazy under the miraculous influence of alcohol, face turned up to catch the glow of the fairy lights they’ve strung along the eaves. Laura’s opposite her on the lounge, socked feet playing at war with Carmilla’s, her fingers picking off the label of the bottle in her hands. She doesn’t stop either motion, but she still somehow seems to pause.

“No. Sometimes I dream I’m wearing one of those dresses again, but it’s never- I have other memories- no,” Laura says, soft. The evening seems to stretch on, the sky like ink and their beers empty. Carmilla can hear the noise of their son turning in his crib, the faint static on the monitor the only sound on this perfect and still night.

Then: “Do you?”

“No,” Carmilla says, and it’s the first lie she’s told Laura in a long, long time.

**Author's Note:**

> i have written other carmilla stuff that's in progress once again. come holler at me on tumblr (still monovosa). i'm the worst.


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